


Four Walls and An Entire Universe

by joycecarolnotes



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: Brief allusions to violence, M/M, Major Character Undeath, Masturbation, ghost au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 16:22:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17563916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joycecarolnotes/pseuds/joycecarolnotes
Summary: When Richard moves into the hostel, he shares his room with Jared: a friendly, lonely, helpful, if often disastrously over-involved, ghost.





	Four Walls and An Entire Universe

**Author's Note:**

> Another contribution to the illustrious ghost Jared genre??? I guess!
> 
> All the thanks in the world to anactoriatalksback for reading multiple drafts of this, and for impossibly kind, patient encouragement <3

Sometimes, he misses kissing.

There are other things he misses: sliding into a warm bath, the feel of fleece against his skin, the taste of honey and chamomile. But kissing. Kissing. Jared hadn't even done all that much of it in his relatively short, brutal lifetime. But sometimes still, thinks Jared, kissing is the thing he misses most.

\--

There's a new person moving into his room. The third this year. The last one left in quite a hurry. Jared hears the tell-tale signs: the chatter among his housemates, the heavy, trudging footsteps, moving boxes dropped off clumsily in the hall. _It won't do_ , he tells himself, _getting attached again, Donald. Not to this one. Not the way you did with Calvin, and David, and Roland. With so many of the others, before_. 

They won't stay long once they find out about him. Once he gets too close, once someone lets it slip what happened in his bedroom, how it was that Erlich bought this house so cheap.

\--

There are advantages to his condition, and Jared was gifted with the ability to craft a silver lining from even the dirtiest, dingiest grey. 

Feeling no hunger, he never has to worry where his next meal will come from. As he can't be seen, there's no need to fuss with his appearance. It isn't as if he can comb his hair, or change the shirt and khakis he died in! Requiring no sleep, and trapped inside his bedroom, he never need fret over where he'll rest his head again ( _gone are the days_ , he thinks proudly, _when you'd go home with any old stranger, just to have a place to sleep!_ ). 

In its way, it's an odd sort of comfort: knowing he's already been through the worst that could happen. Everything, he tells himself, simply must look up from here.

The downside, of course, is the loneliness. The terrible, infernal loneliness. The missing, the longing, the touch he'll never feel. 

Even then, Jared thinks, ever the optimist, at least he has his roommates. Even if they can't see or appreciate him, at least he can make himself useful to them.

\--

Jared's new roommate, he learns, is Richard. Richard Hendricks. Jared likes that he goes by Richard, and not Rick or Ricky or Richie or Dick. There is a sadness, Jared sees, in Richard. How he moves through the world as if encased inside himself, the same way Jared is condemned never to leave their bedroom. There is an odd beauty in Richard also, and Jared has always had a ruinous soft spot for sad and beautiful things. For things he longs to fix, to mend, to comfort. 

Richard brings out all of his best and worst instincts.

Jared watches Richard at work on his Pied Piper application, the way he bites his lip and wrinkles his brow, as he solves another coding issue. Jared treasures Richard's dedication to his work, his ferocious, single-minded concentration. He watches Richard with his friend Big Head, and enjoys his kind fair-mindedness. He watches Richard at night, curled up on his precarious loft bed. That fascinating nose. Those riotous curls, an auburn halo. Sometimes, guiltily, he watches as Richard pleasures himself. His pretty face, his gasping mouth, his small, some-would-say scrawny body. 

Richard moans and sweats and grits his teeth through another tense and restless slumber, and Jared almost loves him. How he longs to soothe his ache!

_Oh Donald_ , Jared scolds himself, _not this again_ , as he hovers, inches off the ground, at Richard's bedside, helpless before his tendency to fixate. His foolish codependence, his pathetic, desperate craving for companionship. Jared knows it is not wise to get so close, so terribly invested, and yet he finds he can not stop himself. There is something about Richard that makes him feel so gloriously, marvelously needed.

It isn't that Jared _tries_ to be creepy. Certainly not, he swears, he would _never_ , as he sets his ghostly hand on Richard's sweat-slick forehead and watches it pass right through. Richard's skin is flushed, as if he has a fever. Jared hopes he hasn't fallen ill.

"So cold," Richard mutters. He tugs his blanket up around his shoulders, and Jared, sick with shame, yanks his offending, invisible hand back.

He only means to help. To show he cares. To be sweet and thoughtful and romantic. The trouble is what feels sweet and thoughtful and romantic to Jared, seems to feel creepy to everybody else. 

\--

Jared does what he can. He whispers hints in Richard's ear sometimes, when he's struggling with the administrative aspects of his business. _This is something you know!_ , he thinks, thrilled at the opportunity to be of value. _This is something you can really help with!_ Jared, after all, had all but completed an MBA when his 'incident' (the polite term he prefers to use) happened. 

It is a skill Jared's mastered: not something all the dead can do, but Jared's had enough practice to grow quite adept at the art of communicating unnoticed. He supposes he was used to going unnoticed most his life. He speaks so softly, so discreetly, Richard genuinely believes he's thought of the ideas himself. 

"Fuck," Richard groans into his hands. It's a late night, up against another crucial deadline, as Richard attempts—in over his head—to pull together a cap table and business plan. 

Jared hovers by his side. He worries Richard will work himself into sickness. He wrings his ghostly hands over the poor quality of Richard's diet, all those energy beverages, his troubled stomach, how he's going on forty hours without sleep again.

"I need," Richard says, to the entire universe, "I need some fucking help with this."

Something happens then: a sensation in the place where Jared's chest would be. It feels warm, and strange, and oddly mortal. It feels a bit like—well, he's afraid to even think it, but it feels a bit like being alive.

Just as soon, the feeling passes. 

Richard slams his laptop shut, resigned, and pitches himself up into his loft bed. He passes out almost immediately, flat on his stomach, mouth gaping, drool leaking onto his pillowcase. Jared leans in close. He listens intently to Richard's loud but steady breathing. An excellent judge of the soundness of mortal slumber, Jared deems it safe, that Richard is in no danger of waking. He drums up all his energy and gets to work. 

\--

Richard doesn't seem happy the next day—not the way Jared hoped he would be—when he wakes up to find his business plan miraculously completed. Much as he hates it, Jared can't ignore the small, ugly part of himself that stings with the knowledge that Richard is not pleased with him, that his work must go unthanked and unloved and uncredited. 

_I want to be noticed_ , Jared thinks then, and the thought is foreign and strange to him, to the child who learned so early that it is often for the best to go unseen. _It would feel so good, to be noticed by Richard. It would feel so very lovely to be seen._

Jared listens in, pinched with guilt at his rubbernecking, as Richard storms down the hall into the workroom, throws his laptop on the table, and demands viciously of their housemates, "which one of you did this? Hmm? Which one of you assholes went into my room last night?"

"Uh, not it," says Dinesh. 

"Yeah, pass," says Gilfoyle.

"No offense," says Erlich, "but when I sneak into a bedroom in the dark of night, generally it is one of the fairer sex's."

"So... what? You three are saying that - that - that this business plan just went ahead and wrote itself?" Richard sounds paranoid, frantic. His breath comes in short pants, and Jared aches to slow him down, to comfort him. 

There is a long moment of silence. Jared holds himself unnecessarily still.

"You know who did it," Dinesh finally suggests, conspiratorially, and Jared recognizes the smug and gleeful tone of a man about to reveal his secret. If he had a stomach, surely he would feel it drop. "It was the ghost."

Richard's voices pitches up several octaves, "the gh - I'm sorry, what?"

Shame settles over Jared like a slow, descending fog. He wishes desperately that he could apologize for the discomfort Richard will feel now, for the sordid, gruesome images that will surely keep him up at night. Jared hides his face in his hands. He sinks mournfully down into the cheap carpet, all too conscious of the stains beneath. He feels disgusted with himself, sorry for existing. Sorry that he ever lived or died at all. And sorrier still, that he had to die the way he did. 

Jared listens in as, despite Erlich's thunderous protests and pronouncements that he "absolutely shall not let that bedroom once again go tenantless," Dinesh tells Richard, in detail, what happened to a nice young man named Donald "Jared" Dunn inside his room. 

_If Richard has to hear it_ , he thinks, ravenous with a craving for punishment, _if Richard has to hear it so do you_. 

\--

It's over. 

Richard will want to collect his things and run away from here as soon as possible. Jared's watched it happen with the others. He regrets that he doesn't have the energy left to telekinetically pack Richard's suitcase for him. It's the least he could do after the trouble he's caused, after the mess he's dragged poor Richard into, but it's not a particularly strong skill of his. 

Richard opens the door and walks into their shared room for what Jared assumes will be the last time.

Instead of packing though, Richard sits down in his desk chair. He spins around in it once idly, then speaks into the quiet, "uh - hello. Hi. If there's a ghost here, hi," so casually, as if it's nothing, as if he isn't the first and only person who's spoken directly to Jared in years. "How's, ah. How's your day going?"

_How's your day going?_ , thinks Jared, _my goodness. What improbable, sensational fortune, to be asked a question like that!_

It's a good thing he can't cry; he'd be way over his tears budget. 

\--

That night, they sit and talk for hours. And again, the night after that. Unnatural as it is, Jared learns to make his voice just loud enough that Richard can hear it. It's not hard when Richard asks him things, and genuinely wants to hear his answers. 

He tells Richard about his childhood, some. A lot about his happy days at college. He describes a goshawk he spied from their window, a book on Scrum he read over an old roommate's shoulder, a particularly stunning sunrise. Jared tells Richard he misses chamomile tea, so Richard sips chamomile with honey for him every evening ("tastes like bathwater," Richard says, "but not in a bad way"). Jared tells him he misses his tub, so Richard accumulates a variety of strangely-shaped bath bombs, stashing them under his desk. Jared tells him he misses crossword puzzles, so Richard brings home a Sunday New York Times each week and they collaborate. 

It's the happiest Jared can remember being, and sometimes, the way Richard smiles, he dares to believe that Richard might feel the same. 

But Jared doesn't mention kissing. That will have to stay something he goes without. 

\--

There is a reason, Jared knows, why the dead keep their distance from mortals. There are certain things that simply should not be discussed, mysteries better left mysteries.

Tonight, Jared senses the question is coming. He can see it in Richard's eyes, in the way he will not glance in what he knows must be Jared's direction. It's a question mortals don't really want to know the answer to and yet always, always, always feel some awful need to ask.

"How did it feel? You know..."

"Yes," Jared says, automatically. He bobs his head knowingly. "Dying." 

Richard nods, his face red, eyes downcast. No matter how brave Richard may seem to Jared, it's clear he isn't brave enough for this.

"Oh Richard." Jared sighs. He sets his long, cold fingers at the place where his chest should be, and where there is, instead, a cold and bitter nothingness. He says truthfully, "it hurt."

"And do you, uh." Richard gnaws his lip. "Do you ever forget? What it felt like?"

_No_ , Jared wants to say. He longs to tell the truth, his deepest darkest secret: that once you hear yourself scream and beg and plead, that it doesn't matter how long you're dead, that you never ever ever stop hearing it. 

Instead he does the kind thing. The thing, he knows, that one must do with mortals. Jared lies and tells him, "yes."

\--

Richard sets everything up: his star map, the lights out, his telescope trained on the double star Beta Cygni. They've been waiting for a clear enough night through weeks of rain and cloudy skies. 

"Here," he says encouragingly. He nods in Jared's direction. "Look."

Jared leans timidly over the telescope, peers through the eyepiece with a single, ghostly eye. What he sees is unspeakably beautiful: a faint, blue star clinging close to its brilliant, yellow partner. 

"Part of the constellation Cygnus," Richard says, "the swan."

"Hmm. Swans mate for life," Jared muses. "And certain widowed swans have been known to die of heartbreak."

"Um, yeah. You know," Richard says, moving fast to change the subject, "matter cannot be created or destroyed, right? So like, nothing ever really dies. It's all the same electrons and neutrons and protons."

"Richard." Jared smiles. If Richard could see, he thinks, he might even describe the smile as flirtatious. "Are you saying that I'm stardust?"

"I mean, yeah, I am I guess."

_Gosh_ , Jared thinks, _how awfully romantic!_

He practically bursts with gratitude to Richard, for making him a part of the world again. For building an entire universe with him, here within the confines of their bedroom's four, spare walls. He feels less and less like a prisoner than he ever has before. Jared looks into the stars. The universe, he thinks, is so overwhelmingly infinite. Vastly dark, too, but isn't that what makes the stars stand out? The point is that you focus on the spots of light within it.

\--

"Richard," Jared asks once, "do you ever get lonely?"

It's something that's worried him lately, as they spend more and more of their time together, and Jared torments himself with guilt over pulling Richard away from the mortal world. Over keeping him here, for his own selfish purposes, almost as alone as Jared once was.

"Pfft. Uh, yeah. I mean, yeah - great - great, flourishing social life here. Now that Big Head's moved out and basically my only friend is my invisible ghost roommate." Richard catches himself and offers placatingly, "no offense."

Jared nods solemnly. "None taken. Richard, you know, if you ever wanted to date, or even bring a partner back here, I - " and much as it pains him to imagine, Jared swears, "I promise I won't mind it."

"Yeah. Sure, Jared. Thanks." 

Richard's posture is poor, his brain overworked, his eyes chronically bloodshot and exhausted. Jared wishes he could offer a rejuvenating head massage. But touching people, he reminds himself, is not like moving objects. Touching people, touching Richard, is something he must make do without. 

"You seem tense. Richard," he tries his best to be delicate. In life, Jared often heard that he wasn't good with boundaries, and certainly he's had trouble with them in death. "I noticed you haven't self-pleasured in quite some time. Do you think perhaps you require... physical release?"

Richard spits a mouthful of his tea onto his sweater. He wipes his face with the back of his hand. "I'm - uh, Jared - what the fuck?"

"Orgasm," Jared explains.

"Heh. Yeah, I'm not - I mean, I got that part."

"Well then?"

Richard hacks out a laugh. "I guess, ah, ever since I found out you were _murdered_ in here"—Jared winces, he doesn't like that word, it makes him feel that he's been rude somehow, that he's been dreadfully impolite, invasive, intemperate—"I guess it hasn't felt very _sexy_ in this room since - woah, woah, wait a second." A realization seems to dawn on Richard. Jared watches something changing in his face. "Jared? Did you - y'know, before - heh, I can't believe I'm about to say this to a fucking ghost but. Did you - were you _watching_ me?"

Jared curls in on himself, bent double, as if to hide his guilt, his shame, his misery. "Oh Richard," he cries, "I did. I overstepped my bounds and invaded your sacred privacy! Mere words cannot convey how sorry I am. And if you never forgive me, I'll - "

"Wait. Slow down." Richard waves off the apology. The corner of his mouth turns up into a smile. It's so blessedly unexpected, Jared wishes he could cry with relief. "I think," Richard says, a little slyly, "heh. I mind it a lot less than I thought I would."

That night, Richard lets Jared watch him, hovering close to the side of his bed. He puts on a magnificent, erotic display for him, and lets Jared whisper in his ear the sweetest words of praise and encouragement. Jared loves his face, his moans, his mouth, his hand moving along the length of himself. He loves it when Richard pinches his eyes shut, and he loves it even more when he opens them. He loves his sighs, the helpless twitching of his hips, his warm spend cooling against his soft, downy stomach. He loves it, he loves it, he loves him. 

And that's how _that_ becomes a regular occurrence. 

\--

"I hate the picture of you they used," Richard says one day, apropos of nothing. They lie together, as they often do, visible and invisible ankles dangling off the edge of Richard's bed. Afternoon sun slants through the window, casting rectangles of light across the floor. Music Jared liked, in life, plays softly from Richard's iPhone, though Richard—who prefers something called "electronic dance music"—teases him about being stuck in the '90s.

"Oh?" Jared asks. "Which picture?"

Richard's cheeks flush. He turns away from the place Jared would be, as if to hide his shame from him. "The one on the news reports."

"Oh," Jared says grimly. "That."

"I know, I looked, I said I wouldn't." Richard chews his bottom lip. He plays with the long, uneven strings of his hoodie. "But I got curious. To see what you looked like."

Jared isn't sure what to say. Even when he was alive, he'd avoided most mirrors and photographs, his foster mother's shrill voice ringing in his ears, proclaiming vanity sinful and frivolous. His face was odd, out of proportion with itself, his body strange, attenuated. He had never liked to look at himself. 

"You were so. Fuck, Jared." Suddenly Richard swipes at his eyes. "You looked so fucking… sad. You were so _young_." 

Jared watches Richard’s shoulders shake, feels the bed move, a breathless sob expelled from the core of Richard's chest. He feels terribly sorry that Richard is _crying_ over him, and does the only thing he can think of: he apologizes.

"Don't," Richard almost shouts. Then, measured, gently, "don't - don't _apologize_ to me. Okay? Just. Don't do that."

"Richard, oh, I lied," Jared blurts, before he can make himself stop, or think better of it, propelled forward by his reckless desire for Richard. His reckless desire to be deeply, truly known. "You never forget. I've never forgotten what it felt like."

"Shit, Jared. What he did - what happened to you." Richard takes a deep breath, like he's searching for resolve, to steel himself. He turns around again, looks hard into the place where Jared's eyes would be. "I'm sorry."

\--

"I wish you could come with me," Richard says, "to TechCrunch. I'm so fucking - nervous. I feel like I'm gonna throw up all the time. It's just - I'd feel a lot _better_ about _everything_ if I knew that you were there."

"I'll be right here," Jared promises, sweetly. He knows Richard can't see it, but he's pointing at his heart. "I believe in you, darling. I'm certain you'll do wonderfully."

"I want to see you," Richard groans, smacking his palm down hard against the mattress—Jared startles—like he's angry at anything that's ever kept them apart. "Isn't there something we can _do_? I wanna _see_ you. I want to touch you, Jared."

And in those words, somewhere, there is something magical. 

It's warmth, first, in his chest, and then all over. A deep, deep warmth he'd all but forgotten how to feel. It sparks in the place where his heart should be and then spreads out, tingling to the tips of his fingers. "Oh!" Jared gasps with delight, and the sound comes out full-throated, with hardly any effort at all. He holds out his arms. His skin is ghostly pale still and yet, unmistakably, solid. He reaches up to touch his face. 

"Jared, you're"—there are tears in Richard's eyes—"Jared, I can see you now." He rests his hand on Jared's hip, strokes his thumb over the jutting bone there through his khakis. "Jared, I can touch you."

_Maybe_ , Jared thinks, _all it took was being wanted_.

"Shit," Richard says, blushing, "you have a really cute smile."

Jared leans in and kisses him. He tastes of honey and chamomile.

\--

"Are you - Jared," Richard says, "I mean - are you sure you're - we're ready for this?"

_No_ , Jared thinks, because he's not sure. But, he remembers, to keep safe from predators, every baby bird—ready or not, even the most awkward, ill-prepared fledgling—must eventually leave its nest. He casts his fears aside, takes Richard's hand, and smiles. _This is who I am_ , he thinks. If no one else wants him, Richard does, and he is living—well, semi-living—proof that that's more than enough.

He steps gingerly over the threshold, and out into the wider world.


End file.
